Swimming Games to Play

Marco Polo

• Marco Polo is a classic pool and water game named after the famed world explorer. To play Marco Polo, one person is "it" and everyone else attempts to get away from the person that is "it," similar to a standard game of tag. The difference is that the person that is "it" in Marco Polo must shut their eyes at all times, using their sense of hearing and the movement of the water to help locate people to tag. At any time the person that is "it" can call out "Marco" and all of the other players must respond by yelling out "Polo." This calling and answering helps the person that's "it" locate and tag other players. When another player is tagged, he becomes "it" and the game continues. To make the game more difficult, you can place limitations on how often the player that is "it" can call out, or mandate that players can't go underwater completely as it renders them unable to respond to the call. You can also have multiple people be "it" at the same time.

Breath-Holding Games

• One of the most fun aspects of swimming, and playing in the water, is completely submerging and holding your breath. A fun type of game is to have contests or activities to see who is best at holding their breath or doing tasks underwater. The most simple contest is to have all players go underwater at the same time and see who can stay under the longest. You can also have contests to see who can swim furthest down the pool underwater without coming up for air. Another fun activity is to put rings, coins or other objects on the bottom of the deep end of a pool and try to dive down and grab as many as possible before returning to the surface. You can also incorporate a diving board or platform into the game to help players get down to the bottom faster.

Ball Games

• Inflatable balls and water go very well together as displayed by the sport of water polo. While most pools will not be equipped to handle real water polo there are a variety of swimming games that can be played with balls in a pool or at a beach. For one, you can play classic gym games like team dodge ball, but in the water instead of on the ground. This creates interesting strategy of trying to stay underwater not to get hit, but being afraid to come up for air. It is a good idea to use relatively soft balls, as throws are likely to hit players in the head. Water basketball is another great game that only requires a small basketball and hoop on the side of the pool or a floating hoop in the middle of the pool. If you have volleyball equipment, you can set the net up across a pool and play volleyball. For either basketball or volleyball, equipment should be set up on the shallow side of the pool so players can jump and move around more quickly.